I go by the three C's: Cooking, Crafts and Cats.

I received this girl a couple of days ago but I was only able to edit the video and get everything ready for today. So here she is! :) This time, it’s a box opening video, so I hope you enjoy it as much as I did making it!

She borrowed Nova’s wig here because its the only one I own in this size that suits her. I have a thing for blonde wigs because now all my dolls are blonde…

I still don’t know if I like her or not… I mean her face is so cute and all but I have no character for her, she was kind of an impulse buy xD I don’t know what wig she’ll wear, or what clothes, as I am expecting another girl her size very very soon too, and that one already has everything ready for her. Blegh, the struggles of a doll collector :S

Oh and Leekeworld is releasing a bunch of new wigs and in two new colours.. so help me, God. I swear, every time I order from them I promise myself it would be the last, but then here I am :-) Maybe you can help me decide? I may even get the lucky bag with 4 wigs just for fun and see what I will get *v*

Again, thanks for reading folks! Hope y’all are ready to go back to school now after the National Day break *vomit* New post maybe.. tomorrow?

Sorry for disappearing for quite some time, was finding it really hard to find motivation to type up something new, but hopefully this will not happen anymore. Working on multiple new projects and I’m very excited to document the process with you guys :)

I wanted to share the process of giving my dolls their faces, as my friends have also expressed some interest in it, so I shall deliver. This isn’t technically a “tutorial”, but more like a walkthrough of the steps that go towards painting a face on a blank doll head. Let’s start!

Step #1 – Preparing the workspace

I also use Winsor and Newton Professional grade acrylic paint, Faber-Castell watercolor pencils, my trusty airbrush (although it was broken when I worked on this head) and Liquitex Matte Varnish as a final sealant to set everything in place.

I also bought this palate that comes with small empty cases to store my different mixes of pastel colors, as it is such a hassle to get the correct color (mixing powders is not the same as mixing paint) only to have it wasted once a head is finished. Now it looks like an eye-shadow palate, no? ;)

Step #2 – The Foundation Step

After priming the head (sealing x3) I get a natural skin color pastel that’s a little more saturated hue than the actual head’s color and lay the foundation base, to make the head more ‘alive’ and not one-toned and empty. Under the eyes, temple, lower cheekbones, inside the ears, and sides of the nose. Some people use pink pastel… that is very very wrong.

Step #3 – Eyes

a) Details: Drawing in the eye crease. A crucial step, without it, the head will look off. Even Barbie has it lol.

b) Eyebrows: One of the hardest parts of a faceup. I start with a pastel base first to determine the shape, and then I start layering in the color and adding hair details with a watercolor pencil. If you start with pencil first, it is so much harder to erase any mistakes, and sometimes it doesn’t get removed all the way. Trust me, I learned this the hard way.
Note: Her eyebrows are light because she is blonde ;)

Step #4 – Eyeliner and lashes

My favorite part ^^ For the eyeliner, I start with painting the inner/upper waterline with black acrylic paint. Then after it dries, I draw in the actual eyeliner using a water-colour pencil, and then taper out the ends. It’s almost the same as drawing in your own real eyeliner except it is much easier because you hold this head in your hands xD Look how pretty this cat-eye is *-* <3

Then after that, I lightly draw in some bottom lashes, and in this case, I added some eyeliner on the bottom waterline to redefine the eye shape :-) I do not draw in upper lashes (that would be hell to draw) as I apply real eyelashes and glue them on! ;)

This time, I used super long ones as I was always hesitant about the length previously, and because of that they didn’t photograph or show very well, so now you can seen them from around the block haha! My mom calls them “Mkashat”, which basically means, fly swatters in English :P

At this point I had already painted her lips, blushed her face and contoured it with a bronze/brown colour to give it an edge and make it pop! The final stage is glossing the lips and bottom waterline to make her eyes look ‘teary’, because our eyes are not matte either ;P I also add a puff of pearl shimmer to the face because I love anything and everything that glitters <3 It’s very subtle though.

After the wig, eyes and clothing..

She currently has some silver nail polish on [yes, I can paint her hands too ;) ], and I’m not liking it. I’m going to give her a French Manicure later on, because it never goes out of style! Keep in mind that her nail is like 3 millimetres… so if you thought doing your own manicure was hard.. x_x

Thanks for reading everybody! Hope your enjoyed this post :) Again, if you have any questions, feel free to ask me! Next post will be about my newest doll, and it may be a video, so stay tuned! :D

So as you all know I posted a few days ago about my newest dolly addition, a Be With You – Carrot (which is still nameless btw >_<) and I haven’t clearly shown the inside of the eye mechanism I mentioned. It is my favourite feature of this doll, and it’s taking doll photography to the next level. In the “past”, you basically insert eyes by taking the wig off first, then the head cap, and then inserting the eyes with a piece of blu-tac or sticky tack (eye putty) and position them accordingly. Now you basically push the lever around to move the eyes and that’s it :)

Now the thing is, this mechanism can only be used with stemmed eyes. And not all companies supply that. In this post I’ll be modding some Oscardoll eyes (that have a flat back) that I bought about a month ago from the Doll Peddlar, so I am able to use it from now on! You can follow this tutorial for any type of flat back eyes if you have any of the Dollsbe dolls from YG.

Let’s start!

The standard Dollsbe eyes can in fact be taken a part from the visible line between the pupil and the stem. Rotate, and pull out. After separating the pupil, I placed it on a flat surface along with my Oscardoll eyes to see if they are the same “height”, which luckily, they are. I’ll tell you what to do if they aren’t the same in a bit!

Now what I’m trying to do is create a stem for my stemless eyes. Easy! I got out my trusty polymer clay and formed a sphere, then pressed it on the surface to flatten one side and moulded it into a good shape until it looked like the other half of the “eyeball” like this…

Next is the stem. I rolled out a thin piece of clay, and poked a hole through it from one end to the other, because that’s where the spring will be inserted. Picture of the whole thing will be below! Plopped it on the dome I created and fixed it with my favourite, Scupley bake-able glue! If you’re a polymer clay enthusiast, I definitely recommend this. It is a life saver!! If you don’t have some, just make sure it is stuck properly or it will fall/break off!

Also make sure your stem length is equivalent to that of the standard eye stem.

After baking, it should look like this! Starting to come together :) This is where the spring is shown. The lever you move around is actually moving the springs, which in turn moves the eyeballs.

To attach to the eyes, I used eye putty and firmly pressed the pieces together, they stick really well!

Now this is the testing stage. You will need to experiment on the size you have now. This is why I mentioned the stem must be closest to the original one, because when I inserted the spring on the eyes I have, the springs were longer than the “hole” we poked on the stem, and couldn’t be inserted unless they were compressed, which won’t move the eyes that way. I tried making it as close as the original, but I still needing to fix things here and there.

DO NOT CUT THE SPRINGS. I say this because that would be a reckless thing to do :’) The spring stays, the stem goes. Well, is modified.

Using my pointy tool, you can use anything available, even a toothpick I suppose, I gently dug through the stem to make it deeper, providing more space for the springs to go in further. In the end, I ended up drilling a hole right through, but that might not be the case with you. I didn’t measure everything to the tiniest detail, but you can do so. Try looking at where the stems of the original eyes sit on the springs, and compare it with your eyes, and drill accordingly.

Another issue I encountered was the stems were a little too long, and touched the edges that hold the springs, and again, prevented movement. Simply “shave” or cut down your stem accordingly if you face the same thing, but do NOT go overboard. If your stem is short, then the springs will not be able to move the eyes. It would be too heavy. I even trimmed the front part, where the eyes would stick, and that helped too. Trimming this is much better than the stem, but you be the judge.

After many many trimmings and modifications, I finally got it to work!! This is what it looks like inside:
You can see here the right eye’s stem is perfect, not touching the mechanism, whereas the one of the left is slightly longer, and with movement, it would rub against it. Trim here and there~

A huge part of this hobby is trial and error, which sometimes even I hate to admit. I like things to work from the first try (who doesn’t?) and first try only, but that wouldn’t get me anywhere. I’m proud of myself that I persevered and didn’t quit. xD

Here’s a video testing it just because: (I apologise for the loud banging noises and the camera focusing sound, I did not know it did that :( I am angry at the salesperson now.)

Man I love these eyes. I do not see myself ordering any eyes other than Oscardoll’s anytime soon. They’re so gorgeous! I wasn’t really liking them at first because I thought it was weird having eyes that had all sorts of stuff in them, but what was I thinking lol. I knew nothing. They’re better that way <3 There’s a whole variety of eyes that have flowers, gems, and one with a fish! Not a live one though, haha. If you’ve not heard of them, check them out here! They sell like hot cakes, so grab ‘em while you can.

In the meantime…

Vogue, baby. Vogue.

Thanks for reading guys! Hope this helps people who want to make the most of their eye mechs ;)

Can’t believe it’s been MONTHS since my last post, but I am back from the dead. As you can already tell, I haven’t spent my time lazing around, I was actually getting some work done, aka- revamping my website! I don’t think I was ever truly happy with what it looked like before, it was a quick transition from the first one, but alas, my layout is as perfect as I want it to be <3 A quick thank you to the awesome Amanda Carlisle who helped me out with installing my logo, and the Studiopress team who made designing websites so much easier with the Genesis Framework. The artist within just wouldn’t allow me to pay another artist to do the designing job, and I must say I am proud for not giving in. All of this is my sweat and blood, baby!

Now off to the main event, after stalking these babies (literally, babies) since February, the amazing BJD sculptor “YG”, the creator of the doll company “Be With You” or “Dollsbe”, opened another resale of his baby doll line last May. These include Paprika, Carrot, Grape and Strawberry, all of which are extremely adorable but my wallet only affords one of them so I chose Carrot :)

I have never done a box opening before so I’m quite excited to show you my own process! I’ll be giving out random info as I go along for those of you who might be interested. Also, if you guys have any questions, don’t be afraid to ask, I love to help. Now off to the pikchures!!!1!

I’m not completely sure, but I think YG either is the only one who runs his company or with a few others as his team, but he has this custom where he sends treats to his customers with every purchase. I’ve seen many other box openings with people getting some type of Korean bread/cake? Its a little funny because you don’t expect it, but it’s a really sweet gesture, so cute xD I really want to taste it, but I guess this is beef flavoured, and I don’t think it’s Halal :P Enough of the Ramen though, haha…

Cute little postcards of all the Dollsbe BJDs :)

Certificate of authenticity!

Putting the cards and CoA in my nice little drawer of all my keepsakes :)

I wanted my girl to have “dirty blonde” hair, and looking at Strawberry’s pictures it looked like a really nice colour, but didn’t like to short cut. I asked YG if there are any wigs in that colour and in a bob cut, and he contacted the company and delivered :D How awesome is that! The wig is so so soft (Mohair), although the colour turned out to be lighter than I had planned, but it’ll do for now. If it bothers me too much there’s always Leekeworld :P

And here’s the mummy!!!!

All wrapped up nice and cozy!

One thing I love about this line of dolls is that they come with a variety of hands! Now that’s what I call customer satisfaction! ;) These are all I need and will ever need, no more ordering separate hands! They aren’t magnetic though, which is a bummer but hey, I’m not complaining~

She’s my first Yo-SD size and I knew I would expect her to be bigger. I’m not at all disappointed or anything but she’s soooo tiny xD My hand for scale lol.

She shows her face…

Brilliant delicate face-up for such a tiny face <3 She has some glitter applied but is not seen unless you look closely! Very subtle and natural!

Dainty little hands! I didn’t notice this before but she has clear nail polish on! Just goes to show you how much love and detail went into this doll :)

She comes with a default slip on dress, but ya’ll already know I got a whole wardrobe for her even before she arrived ;)

Small velcro tape on the front and back of the head to secure wigs!

This is the thing I love the most. Eye mechanism. I own a Pullip and at one point, thought how easy it would’ve been if BJDs had an eye mechanism to make it easier to move their eyes for photoshoots and such, and YG did just that. No more sticky eye putty, no more weird eye positions!! This mechanism moves the eyes up, down, left and right! The eyes that she came in are pretty, but they don’t photograph well, so I ordered Oscradoll eyes about a month ago to really make them ‘shine’, however, to insert them to the eye mechanism they will need stems, and Oscardoll eyes are stemless, so I’ll figure out a way to make some stems and share in a later post!

Eeeeeep with her wig on! <3 Truly a unique face! Nothing like it!

Let’s play dress-up!! :B I’m too old for this…
These are all the super adorable things I snagged from Taobao. Taobao really becomes your friend when you get into the BJD hobby and you wanna save money. Most of the stores who are well-known probably buy from these Taobao stores and re-sell them, I have researched and found the exact same items being sold at different prices.

That panda tho. I’ll embroider him a nose xD

Overalls on kids. One of my favourite things as you can probably tell I got two lol. They’re so adorable :'( My mom used to dress me up in overalls for kindergarten, and I loved it! It was so comfy and even had a small bear like this one, except the bear wasn’t as cute :P

Customary hello is customary.

Off to post a box opening on DoA in a while! Thanks for reading and viewing!

Oh and I forgot to mention, I finished my first year of college a couple of weeks ago and it was great, Elhamdillah! InshAllah next year I will be starting my art courses. Hope I don’t get to draw apples all semester. So stoked! Summer is filled with plans *-*